Mavic 3 CINE Vs Mavic 3, is it really worth paying more for the CINE version?


Hi fam,

I'm a full-time filmmaker, do client work on a daily basis, use my drone all the time, and I'm used to working with pro-format (10bit, 16bit R3D, prores, whatever...) and I want the highest quality.
I'm more than happy to pay and invest for the right work tool that will help me bring my content to the next level, I'm just not sure the Mavic 3 Cine is worth the money over the Mavic 3 Standard


Let's be honest, I've played with some Mavic 3 footage and compared the H264/H265 and put it against the Prores, experimenting/trying to destroy the footage literally. My conclusion is as follow:


Arguments AGAINST getting the MAVIC 3 CINE:

• H265 and Prores look exactly the same!!! I pushed the colors to the max, 1000% zoom, see picture below, can you tell me which one is which in??? I can't
  

• Prores vs H265 looks the same, feels the same, same sharpness, same dynamic range, same color grading capability. H264 for some reason has a slight color shift on the footage I was given but looks overall very close too, maybe a bit less sharp.
  

Arguments FOR getting the MAVIC 3 CINE:

• The biggest difference I've noticed is how good and easy prores is to edit. I was in full preview quality in Final Cut Pro on a 2019 Macbook Pro 16inch  and could scroll the 5K footage super quickly/smoothly straight with the unprocessed footage. The H264 and H265 were both very slow and would require proxies to edit smoothly on my machine.
• You get the 1TB SSD internal storage and fast data transfer to the computer which means no need to buy an sd card
  

But is it worth it considering that prores is 10x the size of the H265... I can create proxies easily with FCP, sure it's extra processing time but I usually do that at night when not using my computer. I can then delete those proxies in 1 click and still archive the original (low size) footage in case I need it in the future, in which case I could re-render proxies.

Basically, after that one test, I feel like buying the Mavic 3 Fly More Combo and buying the remote DJI RC Pro would be much cheaper and would provide the exact same result saving me roughly au$1000 that's 15% and also saving me a lot of storage drive space...

I would welcome anyone who can prove me wrong as I want to find the value of the Prores but I can't.


Could it be that in a future firmware the zoom lens offers prores recording and boosts the quality a lot compared to the non-cine version? If yes, I'm sold
Could it be of anything else I'm missing?


Let me know your thoughts!

For me def. not worth it.

I understand the main benefits are simply if clients request / need ProRes codec over H264/5.  ProRes also offers visually lossless preservation. Other than that the two are very similar.

ProRes should have more data to process than the H265/264 version,  interesting you dont see the difference.    Sounds like its not work it then.

For easy work you could just take H265 and convert to ProRes...and you have same speed in work without +2000 USD.
Still, I am worried about the settings as I cannot see how they plan to put controls of Sharpness Contrast and Saturation in LOG profile in FLY app, as this means to unblock it also for Air2S, killing the sales for M3...
Will be interesting to follow...

FB: GeoDrone4K Posted at 11-11 01:55
For easy work you could just take H265 and convert to ProRes...and you have same speed in work without +2000 USD.
Still, I am worried about the settings as I cannot see how they plan to put controls of Sharpness Contrast and Saturation in LOG profile in FLY app, as this means to unblock it also for Air2S, killing the sales for M3...
Will be interesting to follow...

Yes that's what I thought. Rendering prores proxies in FCP is one click of a button to create or delete when the job is done. This allows better overal data management.

good point regarding the sharpness setting! This is indeed a big miss for the Air2s, despite absolutley loving the image quality and believing that it's a superior image than the M2P,  I hate the level of sharpness and wish this was an option.
But don't you think they could do an update when using the M3 that allows that and not on the A2S. The app knows which drone you're using and could easily unlock or lock the feature accordingly

DAFlys Posted at 11-11 01:44
ProRes should have more data to process than the H265/264 version,  interesting you dont see the difference.    Sounds like its not work it then.

There is more data that's for sure, the files are 10x bigger than the H265 and bitrate much higher. Being used to work with Sony a7s3 10bit and RED 16bit side by side, I can tell easily the difference.
But no matter what I was doing to that M3Cine footage in prores vs H265, I couldn't get the H265 to fail against the prores. It handled my adjustments to unrealistic levels that no one in their right mind would do. I honestly thought the Dynamic range would be very different as it's what I'm the most interested in, but other than a 0.1% visual difference, I couldnt tell

djiuser_SsiNOkmRiaA5 Posted at 11-11 01:34
I understand the main benefits are simply if clients request / need ProRes codec over H264/5.  ProRes also offers visually lossless preservation. Other than that the two are very similar.

I agree with point number 1, if the client wants to save a little bit of time and is is ready to pay me extra for prores, I'll go for it. But in 2021 if a production is able to handle TB of extra footage but can't handle a simple h265 to proress transcoding, I would raise some questions why would they go with a "pro" drone at all.

"prores offers visually lossless preservation" --> I agree and disagree with that in the case of the M3cine and the footage I've played with. There is no visual loss between the h265 and prores, no matter how hard I tried to push the footage.

guillaumecornetfilms Posted at 11-11 13:58
I agree with point number 1, if the client wants to save a little bit of time and is is ready to pay me extra for prores, I'll go for it. But in 2021 if a production is able to handle TB of extra footage but can't handle a simple h265 to proress transcoding, I would raise some questions why would they go with a "pro" drone at all.

"prores offers visually lossless preservation" --> I agree and disagree with that in the case of the M3cine and the footage I've played with. There is no visual loss between the h265 and prores, no matter how hard I tried to push the footage.

Fully agree. Also here was tested H265 vs ProRes and I can tell that you will not make any difference.
The real difference can be made by the LOG curve that is set...Practically this is also why the IMX383 Sony is kicking DJI ass, because of high optimizations made.
I hoped to see a LOG curve that can be adjusted....Now that would be a PRO option...I work also with SLOG2 and damn, that is a good LOG...also A-LOG from other drone company is very good...And this makes me  angry on DJI because the drones are good, but they have a very poor Video Dev department, all time they just made a mess in LOG and they kill the low light shadows and make it black without details saved...(yeah, was a Youtuber that showed M2P problem in LOG, even with Contrast to -2, the black became gray but with 0 details)....
If they will give a true PRO setting for Mavic 3 with LOG curve defined by users, that would be a step forward, as real editors will know how to squeeze maximum from it.

FB: GeoDrone4K Posted at 11-12 01:32
Fully agree. Also here was tested H265 vs ProRes and I can tell that you will not make any difference.
The real difference can be made by the LOG curve that is set...Practically this is also why the IMX383 Sony is kicking DJI ass, because of high optimizations made.
I hoped to see a LOG curve that can be adjusted....Now that would be a PRO option...I work also with SLOG2 and damn, that is a good LOG...also A-LOG from other drone company is very good...And this makes me  angry on DJI because the drones are good, but they have a very poor Video Dev department, all time they just made a mess in LOG and they kill the low light shadows and make it black without details saved...(yeah, was a Youtuber that showed M2P problem in LOG, even with Contrast to -2, the black became gray but with 0 details)....

I'm truly wondering if they could make an update that would make the CINE / prores superior.

As of now, I have a feeling that they are hoping people will get the CINE either because of "production needs" which I don't think is a real need in 2021, and even if it was, that would represent such a small portion of sales. Or that people buy the cine just because their favorite influencer said it was better but without giving an actual proof (and one doesn't need to be a scientist to see that their is no difference so far)

The answer that made me cancel my order:
Q: Hunter Haopeng Chen please tell me if Mavic 3 will have the Sharpness/Contrast/Saturation settings in Log mode.
Tks.

A: Hunter Haopeng Chen
May I ask do you mean the D-Log mode? D-Log is a greyscale mode created for post-production. D-Log mode can provide higher dynamic range, more scene details, and lowest contrast and sharpness, which offers more color editing freedom. But when shooting, there are no settings you mentioned.

FB: GeoDrone4K Posted at 11-13 01:56
The answer that made me cancel my order:
Q: Hunter Haopeng Chen please tell me if Mavic 3 will have the Sharpness/Contrast/Saturation settings in Log mode.
Tks.

DJI could at least train their staff ahah